Today was my last day at work, so of course I'm pulling an all-nighter working on projects and building my workflow. I don't think that will ever stop.
*I just got yelled at at 2:40am for pulling an all-nighter right now today. I'm like dude, it's my vacation, and this is me, relaxing on my goddamn vacation! I can sleep in a few days*
This is the desk I sat at for the last 5 years of my job and for two days a week for a decade before that. To be honest it feels weird for the job to be gone and for me to still be allowed in here. This is likely the last photo that will have my work laptop running Gibson in it. I am currently running through every bin and every parts drawer and converting my entire life over from full time network and server admin to ... someone who just hangs out and does projects and upgrades and documentation for a while.
And this is a sneak peek at what I mean when I say "I have a lot of projects in mind for this CheckMate monitor". I'm waiting for one sort-of crucial piece to this puzzle, then I'm going to make an in-depth tour of how I run all of this stuff, from media services to radio broadcasts. I'll be upgrading and making a lot of sysadmin improvements now that I have been freed for a bit. Retro computers are a piece, but are not really the "purpose" of this pile of stuff. My talents lie elsewhere. Fun times ahead as I embrace my inner digital hermit! I will explain why that is a good thing.
More Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and DEVO, Not as much Bono
TL;DR: Here's why I don't want to see "legal firearms" at local rallies in my town.
I want to see a movement like '60s Black Empowerment and the Pettus Bridge and Kent State and Stonewall heroes. I do not want to live in armed-skirmish-Northern Ireland. We remember the names of the relatively few who lost their lives in the mid-century US, because there were relatively few of them. And look at all of what their sacrifice actually gained us. Voting rights, school integration rights, abortion rights, women's rights, LGBTQ Rights. Think very hard at the progress made in the last 70 years through persistent non-violent protest movements.
Yes, violent fascists are in power. But they've been in power before. The actions of their thousands of assholes is no match for our millions of Regular People who don't want to see their Regular Guy Suburban neighbors eyes burned out of their head with pepper spray or shot 10 times in the back. That guy they just hauled away still has my skil saw.
We can get it back (Not the saw, that thing's just gone let it go). We don't need to walk around armed to protest for peace.
I am not victim blaming. It's not my opinion that Alex Pretti had any role in provoking his own death. My opinion was that he only would have used that weapon in the defense of others facing violence. ICE pepper sprayed this man in the face, and never did he try to shoot them for that. He remained calm. It's unclear to me when they even noticed he had a gun. It seems it may have been after they'd already made their decision that he wasn't ever going to get back up. I'm not going to watch that man die so I can frame-by-frame figure it out.
This is in response to this video about which I have no context. But it's basically a MAGA prick who rolled in all Maga Prick-like and IRL PWN some Libs and then panicked like anyone would when they've mouthed off and decide they gotta go. My opinion is that Pretti would not have used that opportunity to unload his firearm in the MAGA guy's face. As a public servant he would have attended to the injured student. Because he's a regular, nice person who feels a duty to his fellow people.
It's shocking, but not shocking. This will be played by the MAGA right as "bad apples on /both sides/ guys remember that ANTIFA lady who tried to run down that ICE guy?" The civilian hard-MAGA right buys all that and so they feel like they can retaliate in kind when they try and trigger some libs and things get a little too real. Regardless of what an asshole he is, think about this guy's state. He's all jacked up on adrenaline because he braved marching into the lib crowd and talked some smack. Hurries back to the truck. People are gathering. Decides it's Time to Go.
It's a case study in "there's suddenly a crowd of people around my car yelling at me I better get outta here, oh god did I hit one of them I better GO!".
The difference is the ICE agents unload in your face you when you panic under those conditions. As any Regular Person would panic. The Libs do not do retaliate with firepower, and must not IMHO. We are not the violent ones here. This is what non-violent resistance looks like to me. Everyone can do what they can. When the violent fascist government marches straight into us with riot gear, we remain peaceful. And we remain there. There are Trump Flag waving pricks at the No Kings rallies in my town. They get jeered. But they don't get shot at. And I don't want armed Regular Libs in my town square ready to "protect" us. This lady didn't die did she? Would it have helped anyone if this guy got lit up for that?
There's a lot of power in the moment when a peaceful resistance movement is met with state sanctioned violence, and they're not armed to respond. They're just a bunch of regular people being gunned down. And things start moving really fast politically when regular moms in a mini van full of cheerios are being gunned down by feds armed like a military. From 100 angles. On the nightly news. Like you're watching Idi Amin.
The optics works. Most people are disgusted by the national guard having to protect a little kid walking to school because of her color, whether it's in the 50s or now. Churches were bombed and community aid workers murdered then also. But there wasn't a race war because you can't really have a "war" when only one side chooses to use force.
If I take one in the face while peacefully gathered in my literal town's square my final thought isn't going to be "damn I wish someone was armed so we could shoot back".
I would hope I'm thinking of John Lewis.
This isn't Crips v. Bloods ca 1987. It's LAPD v. All of Regular Guy LA in the '90s.
My friend happened to give us a 4 drawer grey parts bin so I decided to build some shelves and an easier to reach space for all the day-to-day rack screws and fasteners, Velcro, dinguses and connectors and whatever.
I'm transitioning my mindset from a fully-stocked laptop bag ready to go with all my stuff to that of a more stationary workbench because I will rarely have to just "get up, grab my bag and go" like I could have to do now. I can even just reach that TI calculator and do the calculation faster than I can go to the KDE menu and launch kcalc on the rare occasions I need it.
The answer is absolutely almost never "zip ties or twist ties". That's why the top two drawers are just Velcro.
This on the other hand is just over the top wasteful storage hubris:
Unfortunately the drawers are exactly too shallow to have the cover with handy glued-in map on the iFixit kit, but luckily it sticks to the side just fine. You know iFixit has PDFs that print out to exactly fit inside this screwdriver kit, right?
Jeanne & The Darlings - How Can You Mistreat The One You Love
I've got a backup management tool set to write. I'll post it when I've got something written and implemented.
I have a small-ish NAS. I currently do nightly Read-Only backups to another NAS stored at a friend's house. Every so often I'll do a "destructive" (Copy & Delete) backup to clean up any files I've deleted or moved since there would be two copies on the target. I only run that when I'm reasonably sure things are "good" on the main device.
My new plan involves a second off-site backup and will give me an effective 2 month backup retention period.
I've mentioned my general goals for this ST. SCSI enclosure, disk imaging, Spectre GCR and stuff. But there's a lot I'm doing behind the scenes like how I had to build the Practical Solutions Monitor Master hack to get video working.
One project I'm working on is documenting everything we have and I'm making internal Wiki pages for each of these items as I go.
My Atari to-do list is pretty much a best-of ST gizmos and doodads.
Far East keyboard vendors "are defining the lower end of the market, and I wish them a lot of luck, but we offer a better membrane keyboard, with better tactile feel, and a lot of service and market support here in the U.S. We offer Cadillacs, and are not the cheapest guys in the world."
- Lexmark's manager of market development Dick McCall regarding falling keyboard prices in 1993, just after spin-off from IBM
I recently bought a new Model F SSK. I've always felt bad for my role in The '90s Purge, wherein if I had a dollar for all the models M and F that ended up in a dumpster...well I could have put a down payment on a mortgage for a new modern Model F :-) I am not, repeat, not knocking the price. It's actually quite a value if you consider that a Model M sold for hundreds of 1989 dollars (MSRP direct from IBM anyway) as the cost-reduced, slightly crappier replacement for the F. It's also a labor of love and I like to support these sorts of projects. It's /incredibly/ well made and is just an absolute monster.
Aside from some initial glitchiness with a couple of "iffy" flippers and springs, we got it up and running relatively quickly. Definitely get the First Aid Kit, in fact I'll probably get another just to have it. The only modification I made from the default was to remove the fixed USB cable and replace it with a USB-C M -> USB-A F dingus so I could just swap it with my normal keyboard cable.
This steel & aluminum Model F also makes a Model M feel like the toy at the bottom of the Cap'n Crunch box.
Witness:
The model f ssk is pretty pingy but is a total pleasure to type on. My cow-orkers are lucky I didn't haul it down to our 3 day on-site meeing or they'd have tried to murder me in the first 10 minutes. Luckily it doubles as a weapon so I'd have been just fine.
See. The model M sounds like and feels like a children's toy by comparison. IT'S WHISPER QUIET!
Working in the computer store in the '90s I always loved the Model Fs we had around and tried to use them as bench machines, but they were /just/ that little bit too oddly laid out to be useful. So I heaved 'em. Lots of Model Ms too, and 5150s...yeah yeah. Progress. How was I supposed to know I could have made a lucrative career out of making videos about the crap in the basement of a computer store 30 years later?
I like the Model M keyboards I've got, but without fail a couple of weeks into using one my hands start to hurt and I worry about "This is it, after 40 years of this shit I'm finally getting some kind of RSI nonsense". Then I switch to a Keychron and everything is better after a day or two. It's weird because my natural tendency is to kind of hammer on keyboards, or at least I feel like I do, what do I know.
The F feels a lot lighter while typing even if it sounds much more violent. I haven't had any strain yet.
Verdict: Get one! They're Great! - As long as you don't mind maddening frustration when you assemble the whole thing and a single goddamn key won't actuate so you have to take all the caps back off and rip it apart. Not that I had to do that several times. Honestly I wasn't going to get this because I knew from reviews that it shipped without the keycaps and it looked irritating and fiddly to get it going (and I was right!) but Natalie talked me into it. I'm leaving the "locking" tab bent open since like, is it even possible for that backplate to slide? Time will tell!
Again, none of that is a knock on the manufacturing of this thing. It's /great/ and I'm sure it'll last me until I die. I just know my limitations and that I have a very low tolerance for frustration since I've been abused and burned by work for far too long and as such have no patience for friction unless I'm being paid. I don't care how much fucking hacker-chow gets in there, these keycaps aren't coming off to clean or anything unless I absolutely have to.
I was certain that one of Thomas's videos on the modern Model F showed the key assembly process, but I can't find it. Enjoy anyway.
Man, nothing shuts off my productivity spigot like a good old fashioned anxiety attack. I'm not sure what people don't understand about "I don't go outside".
I don't go to supermarkets, I don't go to convenience stores, or restaurants, or concerts or anywhere else I'm going to need to interact with other talking meat. I'll go to the dump, or datacenters or whatever. Places where all the other meat are Over There and aren't trying to have conversations with me. Very occasionally I will work myself up and go to lunch at a diner or whatever, but it's a lot of effort.
Consider this a "Before" post for an upcoming weekend project I'll have to do. Traditionally that's what the Thanksgiving long weekend is for.
I'm a big believer in having relatively tidy cabling. There's definitely just masses of wires in my life. But if you have a solid base of sanely cable managed stuff it makes it pretty easy to just tidy up the important stuff and brush all the random knots of cables into a drawer because if they mattered they'd be cable managed.
This is not a "general purpose" guide for people to learn how to make network cables. I'm sure there are better guides with better methods and videos and whatnot. This is not a technique super-guide. If you find it and it's useful, great!
K, so here's us putting an RJ-45 end on a CAT-6 cable.
Strip about 1.5-2 inches of jacket from the cable. In the world of pass-through connectors you're not really penalized anymore for making everything a bit "too long". It's easier the more slack you have.
I'm trying to lay out some projects that I want to do "when I have the time". I'm considering streaming / recording these as I go if anyone wants to see them and/or help live. I'm at least going to document all of this so it's available to anyone who needs it.
I'm going to update this page as more things come up and I start completing tasks.
Pimp my Atari ST
Get video working. I have an SC1224 which isn't /super/ reliable. I have a Checkpoint monitor that I'm trying to get working for color + mono. I need to get that thing figured out and order whatever I need to make it go
Get a BlueSCSI working as a novelty oversized hard drive with tons of partitions and everything on there. This will involve removing the RIFA caps and getting Len's ICD enclosure working and learning how to install drivers and stuff.
Get my ST talking to Linux machines over serial. This could either be the Pi inside the CheckPoint monitor, or ideally hooked up through the Avocent serial console switch so I could address other ports
Use the serial terminal to manage software transfers from my PC to ST eliminating using aging physical floppy disks and drives or new things like GoTek
Use this method to make images of Len's stuff and transfer to the PC. I think that will be the easiest way to archive these disks
Build the AdaFruit project to use the NeXT non-ADB keyboard on a PC with USB
Use that knowledge to gauge how hard it might be to go the other direction? Using USB stuff on NeXT would be way more useful
Try to get the service manual for that printer or an equivalent Canon model
MiSTer Cabinet
Remove that front door. I keep banging my knees on this idiot door
While the cabinet is apart, extend all the ports from the TV inside with like pigtail connectors including power (C14 -> C15), HDMI and anything else like RF and stuff to hook up Ataris
